


And Yes, I'll Never Work Out Exactly How You're Thinking

by HoleiHeck



Series: Go ahead and tell me you got all you want [1]
Category: DCU, DCU (Comics), Nightwing (Comics)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Codependency, Domestic Violence, F/M, Gala's, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M, Metaphors, Minor Dick Grayson/Roy Harper, Minor Selina Kyle/Bruce Wayne, Rich Bruce Wayne, Slow Dancing, Underage feelings, Unhealthy Relationships, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Vacation, Venting Drinking Problems through Bruce, Venting Relationship Problems through Dick, child abuse if your read it that way
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-29
Updated: 2021-02-13
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:22:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 3
Words: 14,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27055624
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HoleiHeck/pseuds/HoleiHeck
Summary: At a certain point, Bruce realized Dick anticipated being hit, and that was the furthest thing from being okay that Bruce could imagine.OrBruce and Dick grow up. The golden times are so good they hurt, and everything else falls apart.(How to be around each other when you love each other)
Relationships: Dick Grayson/Bruce Wayne
Series: Go ahead and tell me you got all you want [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1990444
Comments: 28
Kudos: 125





	1. Don't want to be alone (so you'll do)

**Author's Note:**

> This story includes domestic violence! I want people to be clear. Dick and Bruce resolve these problems in the next story. and it happen when he's underage, but the theme of the story is that Bruce has treated Dick like a partner and not his child, and Domestic Violence is included in that with Bruce.

Dick is ten years old when he finally feels the chill of the Wayne manor. It feels empty and lonely, and more often than not, he doesn’t know where Bruce is. And it makes him anxious. 

Dick is used to a small trailer among many, used to his parents sleeping just a few feet away from him and swooping him up into their arms at any time of day. Bruce Wayne feels so very far away compared to the life he was used to. His current life feels very far away from the life he was used to. 

When Dick wakes up with a gasp and cold sweat sticking to his sheets, the impulse to go to his parents is overwhelming. the reality that he can’t is devastating. It is perhaps what motivates him to crawl out of his bed and into the hall. What has him climbing the stairs until he was on Bruce’s landing. Had him closing his hand around Bruce’s doorknob and his knees shaking, just a little. 

Bruce Wayne was a beast of a man. Like that one movie Alfred had watched with him. The one with the giant mansion with all of the singing furniture. But at the end of the movie, the beast too, could love. 

He held his breath as he opened the door. The figure under stupid-expensive duvet shifted slightly and Dick had no illusions that Bruce didn’t hear the door creak open. He probably heard Dick as soon as he made it up the staircase. 

He didn’t care. 

He ran toward Bruce’s bed, feet dull against the carpet, and lunged into Bruce’s bed. Bruce’s figure went stiff next to him, but Dick ignored him and wiggled under the duvet. 

He put cold toes to the back of Bruce’s knees and Bruce finally took a breath, stretching the blanket between them. 

Dick’s mom and dad always used let him sleep with them. In fact, he slept with them more often than not. Nothing was better or more right in the world than Dick crossing the trailer and crawling in between his parents and having them groan and laugh and smother him with kisses. 

Bruce was nothing like his parents, and it made his heart ache. He leaned forward and rested his forehead in between Bruce’s shoulder blades for only a second before Bruce’s back contracted with a long breath. He turned around slowly, giving Dick time to pull back. Dick didn’t. He could be just as stubborn as the Bat. 

Bruce blinked at him, crease between his eyebrows. Dick reached a hand out and rubbed at Bruce’s forehead, maybe a touch too roughly. Bruce huffed out a breath that Dick felt fan across his face. 

He was smiling. Smiling. Dick showed off his pretty teeth, thrilled.

“You shouldn’t be in here.”

Dick’s smile fell. He took his hand back from Bruce’s face. “I… it’s cold in my room.”

“Ask Alfred for an extra blanket.”

Dick frowned and turned his back on Bruce, pulling the blankets further over his shoulder. He could almost hear Bruce raise his eyebrows. He scowled at the stupid ornate nightstand next to Bruce’s bed. 

“… are you ignoring me?”

Dick sealed his lips closed shut. 

“Dick.”

He felt Bruce’s giant body shift the mattress until it was hovering over him. Dick closed his eye tightly. Bruce sighed, and finally, he reached out a hand and closed it around Dick’s shoulder. With his eyes closed he could almost pretend he was in his parents trailer, in their bed, with his dad’s hand warm against his skin. His throat was thick and he closed his eyes tighter. Bruce sighed again, because evidently he liked to do that, and his hand fell from Dick’s shoulder. Dick almost opened his eyes at the loss. 

Bruce turned on his side, putting a conscientious space between them. Dick waited as long as he could before he moved back on the sheets, his back flush against Bruce’s towering one. He sighed at the body heat. He thought about how when his parents found him in bed they’d sling each of their arms around him until his chest was almost too heavy to breathe and how they smelled familiar and like home. 

He breathed deep. Tried to take in the smell of Bruce. It… wasn’t bad. He breathed again, and he felt Bruce’s back moving against him. It was comforting. If he focused on Bruce’s body heat and his smell, and the grandeur of the bedroom, it was comforting. 

It was the smell of his new home. The feel of it. 

Bruce might be… cold, but he was home now. And if Dick had any say in it, he’d make him human all over again. 

Bruce’s back was just starting to relax against his when Dick drifted off to sleep. 

A couple of months later, Dick made his debut as Robin, and somehow, he finally felt like Bruce was learning how to like him. 

Without missing a beat Dick wrapped his arms around Bruce’s neck, leaning his weight onto his back. Bruce ignored him and kept his attention on the newspaper spread out in front of him. Dick hummed next to Bruce’s ear and the fine hairs on the back of Bruce’s neck stuck up. He tried to shake Dick free. 

Whining, Dick slung himself into the chair next to Bruce. Newspapers were worthy of Bruce’s full attention, but Dick, evidentially not. 

Alfred poured him some orange juice and placed his plate in front of him silently. The house was too damn silent. Had been for all the years he had lived there, and if Bruce didn’t show any humanity anytime soon Dick was going to crack up. Go crazy, Joker style. 

When he was younger, Bruce seemed to start to soften to him, letting him climb into his lap and into his bed and carry him on his shoulders. But lately he’d been pushing Dick off of him and away and locking his bedroom door at night so that Dick couldn’t sneak in. Said Dick needed to act his age. 

But Dick was tactile. Everyone at Haley’s was, and Bruce hardly communicated with words-cuddling and sleeping were the only ways Dick knew Bruce actually liked him. 

“Thanks Alfred,” Dick said, trying not to sound too put out. 

Bruce went to turn the newspaper, and Dick was barely sixteen, so he snagged the newspaper away from him and pretended to read it for himself, furrowing his brow and scowling. He was pretty sure Alfred almost smiled. 

“Dick…”

Dick folded his hands on top of the paper and stared at Bruce. It took a trained eye to see the corner’s of Bruce’s mouth twitch. Dick bit down the urge to preen and watched Bruce steadfastly, and Bruce, with a small curve of his mouth, watched Dick right back. Alfred sighed somewhere to the right of him. 

Bruce’s eyes flicked back and forth between Dick’s own in a way that made Dick feel a little overwhelmed, loathed as he was to admit it, and Bruce must have seen his chance. He ripped the paper back into his own hands, not breaking eye contact all the while. 

“Cheat.”

Bruce had the newspaper in front of him, but finally, he was watching Dick. He raised a thick brow. “And pray tell Dick, how have I cheated?”

Dick opened his mouth, and then closed it. He wasn’t quite sure how, actually. Instead of answering he shoved a piece of toast from Bruce’s plate straight into his own mouth, and tried speaking around it. “You never play fair.”

Bruce seemed to like that answer, though Dick could tell he was trying not to show it. 

Batman didn’t have any superpowers or super-speed and he definitely wasn’t some type of space-man, even if he acted like it sometimes. He had to rely on just himself and his tricks to get done what came easily to extraordinary people. In that way, he was kind of more of a hero. To Dick, at least. 

“You could injure a man’s pride, talking like that.” Bruce’s eye’s were light and teasing and Dick felt his face flush with pleasure at the fact that Bruce was paying attention to him again. Not Batman, doling our orders and watching over him in his unreadable and grim sort of fashion, but the man that took him into his home when he had lost everything. 

Alfred cleared his throat loudly as he moved to Bruce’s shoulder and topped off his coffee and Bruce’s face went empty so fast Dick felt everything warm and good in the moment fall right through the floor. Picking up the newspaper again, Bruce disappeared and Dick stared at his own plate, hands curling into fists at his side. 

After Dick forced down some more toast and excused himself from the table, Bruce cleared his own throat. 

Dick almost didn’t turn, just to show Bruce what it was like when he was being ignored, but he pivoted on his heels and faced Bruce. 

Bruce, the bastard gave him only passing glance before further pursing what-the-fuck-ever he was reading. Dick was pretty sure he’d been on the same page for about ten minutes. 

“It’s come to my attention that you need to learn how to dance.”

Dick shifted uncomfortably. 

“Is this because of what happened at the fundraiser? Because I swear, the cocktail sauce that got on Mrs. Reynolds… you know. womanly area-“ Bruce cut Dick off with a very loud sigh. Which was probably warranted, in this case.

“While last month’s fundraiser… incident, did factor into my decision making, the fact of the matter is that I have neglected teaching you certain manners for a long time. And while that was fine when you were younger… I’ve come to realize I’ve done you a bit of a disservice.” Bruce looked distinctly uncomfortable and it just served to make Dick uncomfortable in turn. Which just meant Dick was always uncomfortable. “Especially considering you’re now… at the age where such manners may become more important. In social situations.”

“Are you… basically saying that you want me to learn a bunch of antiquated old stuff so that next time a girl asks me to dance I don’t knock into a caterer and cause a long string of reactions in which-“

“Yes! Yes.”

“Oh. Okay.”

Bruce shook out the newspaper before finally turning the page. He must have read the crap out of the last one. Dick was feeling spitefully enough to point it out, but Bruce spoke first.

“You’ll have lessons starting on Monday. Same tutor I had.”

“Wait, what?” Dick reentered Bruce’s space, frowning. “That’s stupid. You teach me.” That startled Bruce into staring at him again. 

“No.”

“Bruce, I’m not doing lessons! If you wanted me to do lessons you should have signed me up with all the other kids five years ago. Now it’s just embarrassing!”

Bruce’s brow wrinkled in a way that would be adorable on anybody that wasn’t two hundred and fifty pounds of pure muscle. “You don’t get embarrassed,” Bruce said, offhand. Dick scoffed and flung out a hand, fully aware he was being dramatic and really not caring at all.

“I’m going through puberty! I’m always embarrassed!” Bruce stared hard at him, Dick with his arms still outstretched with limbs too long and coltish and face scowled up and as ugly as he could make delicate features go. 

And then Bruce laughed. Laughed so hard he had to cover his mouth and his shoulders shook and he looked so fucking young like that, as young as Dick knew he really was, and something about the moment made the kitchen fall away behind them. 

Dick dropped his arms, unable to hold back his smile if he tried. His mind was buzzing with Bruce Bruce Bruce and his chest was aching a little because it’d been so long since he’d seen Bruce like this at all. it was like missing someone right in front of you. 

Him and Bruce were kind of experts at missing things-people-anyways. 

Bruce lowered his hand and the skin around his eyes wrinkled and he was smiling and shaking his head. Dick wanted to climb into his lap that Bruce was probably right that he was too big for. 

“Fine.”

Dick blinked and tilted his head, trying to catch up to conversation like the world hadn’t just shifted and hope hadn’t been born hard and hot beneath his breastbone. 

“What?”

“I’ll teach you. We can do it next weekend. Hopefully by the time the gala comes up next month you’ll be able to do a passing waltz.”

“Of course I will. I’m a Grayson. A born performer.”

“That you are.”

Lifting himself on the balls of his feet, Dick debated if it was worth it, to just plop himself down onto Bruce and inevitably have him push him away and go back to his newspaper. Bruce was still looking at him in that stupid soft way and for some reason it made him hesitate, made him almost embarrassed when thinking about sitting on Bruce. 

He had to play the long game, after all. Get Bruce to care about him again. Laughing was a good start. 

He tried to make his smile as soft as Bruce’s. 

“Have a good day at work, B.”

“Yeah. You too.”

Dick raised a brow. 

“I don’t work. You mean at school?”

“Yeah. Yes.” Bruce picked up his coffee mug and took an absent sip. “And please don’t pull any stunts like the one with the PA system.”

“No promises!” Dick called. He ignored Bruce calling after him and went to get ready for school, for the first time in a long time, excited about his day. A thousand half formed plans hatching like insects in his stomach.


	2. And of all the lifts home and all the mixed feelings

Dick had miscalculated. 

Bruce was a monster and dancing was lame but luckily, Dick seemed to be okay at it. Not that Bruce would let him know. 

Once Bruce started the music everything was easy, but the first fumbling attempts were in the back of Dick's mind. The first fumbling attempts in which Dick scuffed Bruce's shoes was mortifying. And it definitely didn't make Dick feel any closer to Bruce. 

Bruce was stiff too. Which was surprising when Dick had watched Bruce swoop up countless socialites and glide them across the dance floor or whatever. 

Bruce was staring at their feet like he had do the steps a thousand times and never cared about the partner once. It probably didn't help that Dick was leading. Bruce never followed Dick's lead. 

"I didn't even know you had a record player B. Pretty antique for a guy like you."

"It was my mother's." 

"And the record?" Dick asked, narrowly avoiding a misstep into Bruce's space. 

"Also her's," Bruce said, looking barely north of Dick's feet. Waiting to see where he would step next. 

"She liked music?"

Bruce dragged his gaze up, looking down at Dick in a way that Dick would need a couple years to decipher. "Yes," Bruce said, eyes on Dick's face and absentminded in his voice. "Yes. She was the... how do you say it?" He looked at Dick like a question. It made Dick's heart beat faster. "The perfect high society wife, I guess. But behind closed doors she was... very lively." Bruce looked somewhere left of Dick's shoulder. "In some ways she-" Bruce snorted and shook his head. Panic that Dick was familiar with curled in his stomach. 

He was going to lose this. Bruce would, Bruce would-

"In some ways what?" 

Wrong thing to say. Dick tripped, too busy looking at Bruce, and Bruce caught him by the waist with just one massive hand. Dick looked up at Bruce, everything inside of him skewered by a gentle touch, unplanned. Bruce tried to move his hand away and Dick just grinned, securing Bruce's hand more firmly on his waist. 

"Time to switch," Dick said, easy as anything, heart in his throat. "You lead, and show me how it's done." Bruce looked down his nose at Dick, a look that might work on Bruce's business associates, but not with the person who had been living the better part of half a decade with a stone man itching to come alive. 

He changed their hand grips so that Bruce's was leading and smiled, soft like he'd seen Bruce do in the kitchen last week.

Bruce exhaled and took the first step, pushing Dick back on their dance floor. The spare sitting room. It really didn't matter. 

Bruce was just as stiff at this. Still thinking or anticipating without feeling or whatever dancing was supposed to be like. Dick couldn't follow move that were stale and tight, nothing given, nothing taken. 

"What was her favorite type of music?"

Bruce faltered, taking two steps into Dick's space and then going stagnant. He picked up though. His smile wasn't for Dick but Dick was greedy and Bruce's smiles were rare, so Dick let himself feel it. 

"What?" he asked, heart climbing up his throat and feet following Bruce's and-

"Nothing. It was... Surprisingly she liked contemporary artist. I think Elton John was a favorite of hers. One of our maids who just came to the country and her would gather together to listen to him."

Dick faltered. Their shoes bumped against each other. 

Dick pasted a Dick Grayson smile on his face, and looked Bruce in the face, eyes bright. "That's crazy!" Dick exclaimed. "That was one of my mom and dad's favorites."

Bruce's grip was so steady it lead Dick into following his steps, mind a thousand miles away to a cheap record player and Pop Haley complaining about the same old records on repeat. 

"He was very popular." Dick swallowed and followed Bruce's lead.

"What was your mom's favorite song?"

Bad. Reckless, too loud, too much, the things Dick was that Bruce wasn't and-

Bruce pursed his mouth. He hated talking about his parents. But Dick was his... his partner, damn it.

Bruce's steps were so slow they were almost no existent. Just the two of them dragging their feet over the stupid expensive Persian rug.

"She uh-" Bruce looked farther left, if it was possible. "She liked Daniel and Tiny Dancer. She'd put on Tiny Dancer and dance around my father's study until he stopped working and would turn her around the room."

It was too much and not enough. Like everything else Bruce gave him. 

It was sad. It was sad because Bruce was looking at Dick and thinking of something he couldn't ever get back and Dick was looking at Bruce and thinking about his own parents swaying to the radio at circus barbecues, bare feet making soft sounds against the grass.

"Yeah. That's sweet." Not enough. An ounce of Bruce, a pound of Dick. "My parents were the same. Their favorite was Your Song. Cliché, I know, but when we'd have parties they'd get all wrapped up in each other and ignore everyone else around them." Dick grinned, and it felt stiff. "I bet your parents did the same."

Bruce's eyes didn't shutter. They moved to Dick's face and stared him down with something Dick couldn't name. 

"They did."

Dick should have stopped talking. Bruce was giving more than he knew how to. Pushing him could result in nothing good. 

"Your parents really loved each other, huh?" Dick asked, tongue fat and hot in his mouth. He wanted to spit it out in the small space between his and Bruce's bodies.

"We... we all loved each other."

Dick wanted to ask something terrible. Maybe if Bruce didn't look at him like that he wouldn't want to know. Wouldn't want to know if he was family enough for Bruce. But Dick was scared of the answer, and Bruce was being open about things that had boiled into trauma and darkness and Dick didn't feel like he had the right to ask about just the two of them. It was never just the two of them. 

But Dick was reckless. 

"What were they like? Your mom and dad. You-you uh, never say."

Bruce grimaced. He moved his eyes away from Dick's. 

Dick refused to follow Bruce's next step until Bruce glanced back at him. They looked at each other for a long minute, Bruce's eyes shuttered and full behind the curtains that Dick couldn't read. Dick was pretty sure Bruce was going to release him and hide. 

Then Bruce tugged at Dick's waist, manhandling him into their waltz. 

"My dad was kind, but... stoic. He was hard to read but he did incredible acts of goodwill even as he lived a quiet life. My mother was different. She was..." Bruce ducked his head and met eyes with Dick, humor in his eyes. "A firecracker, would be the right word, I think."

Bruce turned Dick with more flourish and Dick lost his footing, not sure how not to lead in this waltz. 

"Everybody loved her. She was fun and full of life but had a terrible temper sometimes. Her and my dad could get into arguments you could hear all the way from different wings. But they always made up." Bruce's mouth curled at the corner, eyes still meeting Dick's, unguarded and kind. Dick kind of wanted to sweep his legs from under him and run away.  
"Sometimes just as loudly as they fought," Bruce said, laughter in his voice. 

Dick laughed too. "Gross!"

"It was. But also sweet."

"Speak for yourself. I luckily never had that childhood moment of walking in on my parents. They'd always have someone watch me when they wanted to be alone. Got to know the whole circus really well that way."

The music had stopped playing, but Bruce was still absently turning them around the room. His feet were slower, softer against the stupid Persian rug. 

"You miss them," he said, soft as anything.

Dick's throat burned. 

"Yeah, of course. But sometimes no. And that makes me feel guilty when I realize it, but I know it's normal. I'm not the type of person to be sad all the time and I don't think..." Its healthy to be mourning all the time. Dick cleared his throat and smiled up at Bruce, who was still looking at him, open as much as he could permit. 

"Well," Dick started. "We've had good times. I wouldn't trade being your Robin for the world."

Bruce looked stricken, and Dick, with startling chest-crushing clarity, realized Bruce would. Would trade the world-would trade what they had-to have his parents back. 

It was stupid that Dick was surprised. He knew Bruce. He knew him. 

Dick still wanted to rip his still slightly sweating hand out of Bruce's.

He turned his wrist and laced their fingers together instead. 

Dick wanted to storm out of the room and gather his things and see how Bruce would like living in the manor without him.

He stepped toward the record player, fingers tugging Bruce forward and Bruce following him under some strange compulsion until they were stood in front of the drawn up needle and record still and black and the polished wood reflecting Dick's stupid earnest face. He let out a breath, slow and quiet. 

"The music stopped," Bruce said. 

Dick squeezed Bruce's hand. "That's okay," he said. "We can play a different record." Dick smiled his very best smile. A performer. "What was your favorite record growing up B?"

Bruce tore his hand away, eyebrows furrowing. "I didn't-"

"Oh sure you did!" Dick's smile was too wide. He knew that. "Just tell me!"

Bruce tugged his hand free and for a second Dick thought about holding it hostage, but he let it go. Bruce looked disgruntled, but wasn't looking at Dick. He was looking instead at the bookcase full of records. Dick's hands started sweating. 

Bruce cracked his neck and pulled down a record. He stared it down in his hands before breathing out through is nose. He looked up at Dick and tilted his head, beckoning him closer. Dick stepped carefully in front of the record player. He could almost see his face in it's polished wood. 

He didn't belong there. He didn't-

"Do you know how to set a record?" Bruce asked. Nothing but graciousness in his voice. 

Dick shook his head. 

Bruce smiled at Dick's left shoulder again, and that was okay this time, because-because it was. 

Bruce unsheathed the record, peeling back the protector and sliding it out of the album, spinning the record in his fingers. He looked back at the record player, softness in his face that didn't belong to Dick; that Dick was just able to see. He reached the record out to Dick, same softness still in his eyes. 

"Hold this. At the edges like I am."

Dick took it on his fingertips. Watched with breath held fast as Bruce leaned down and ran his finger gently down the outside of the needle. As he crouched down, slacks bunching up on his thighs, and blew the accumulated dust on the needle fast away. He held out one hand without looking away from the record player, and Dick nudged the record gently against his fingers. Bruce startled and looked back, and then the corner of his mouth curled and, and, and then it was all okay, Dick would guess. Bruce grabbed the record by the edges, fingertips brushing fingertips, and spun it in his hands.

Dick rolled his eyes and Bruce's mouth curled further. 

And then Bruce set the record, holding the needle more carefully than Dick had ever seen him hold anyone else, and set it free on the record. 

Low brassy notes rang out.

"Who is this?"

"Otis Redding," said Bruce's profile. "Greatest hits."

The music was full and bodied. But it wasn't music to dance to. At least not to dance to the way that they were before with Bruce as a cardboard cutout and Dick still fumbling his steps. 

Dick bobbed his head. He knew Bruce was watching him out of his peripheral. The spinning of a black record wasn't that interesting. Suddenly, Dick was tired. He didn't want to play games. He wanted to listen to a record that reminded Bruce of childhood while looking at him, while saying things that might not mean anything, but that play at getting closer to a man that it's impossible to get closer to. 

Dick sighed, and moved across the stupid, stupid, bright red Persian rug and collapsed against the arm of the loveseat nearest Bruce's desk. 

Bruce blinked at him. 

"Come sit down, B. I'm tired. Talk to me."

Dick knew full well Bruce would not talk to him. He knew that Bruce was more comfortable with staring and waiting for Dick to monologue or make cheesy jokes and knock the bad guy of the week flat on his ass. He did not expect Bruce to waver in his spot, casting a gaze back at Dick, and cut across the room to sit at his desk. 

It was ridiculously huge. 

Dick slung his arm over the arm of the loveseat and blinked his eyes at Bruce. Bruce blinked back. Bruce looked like a lost little boy.

"You uh- you could tell me when you first heard this artist."

Bruce nodded once, probably to himself, and opened his mouth, determined in a way that made Dick's belly warm. 

"It was necessary!"

Bruce ripped off his cowl and glowered down at Dick and Dick, Dick lifted his chin. 

"It was against my orders!"

Dick rolled his eyes with more theatrics than he felt. "Is that all you care about!?" he spit. "Orders? Commanding me around like a-like a-"

"You wanted to do this. You agreed to listen to my rules when I relented and let you... let you parade around in-"

"Fuck you Bruce! I saved a life tonight! Is all you really care about making sure I follow your stupid orders!?"

There was a gasp by the stairs. Bruce's face grimaced further. There were lines on his face from were the cowl pressed in. Dick wouldn't usually notice, or care, but he was starting to get a little lightheaded. Not that Bruce could know. 

"You're late," Bruce growled. 

"Don't take it out on Alfred."

"YOU DON'T TELL ME WHAT TO DO!" Spit hit Dick's face. Bruce looked angry enough that Dick's heart beat a little harder despite himself. He stock of his body. Shoulders back and chin straight back up again. Bruce just tightened his grip around Dick's side, still glaring down at him. 

Dick was more relieved than he would admit when he heard Alfred's polished shoes stop in front of them. 

"Master Richard," he said, already collected. "How many times have you been shot?"

"Just the one."

"Very well. I'll take you back to the med bay."

"I'll take him," Bruce growled. Dick would rather he not. Dick would rather Bruce go log reports and leave him alone to seethe enough to forgive Bruce for yelling at him in the first place. 

Alfred looked at Bruce for a moment, like he might object, and then just inclined his head and turned on his stupid polished heel and left Dick to be manhandled by an angry Bruce until he was on a medical table, fresh blood trickling out of his thigh from the wound being disturbed. Alfred moved close enough to Dick that Bruce had to step back, and finally, while Alfred worked, Dick could breathe. Just not too deeply because, fuck, a bullet really did hurt. 

Bruce didn't talk while Alfred took the bullet out, or when he cleaned the would, or sewed it shut. When the final stitch went in, Bruce swept out of the room, anger still roiling off of him. 

Dick was sick with his own anger. 

"You'll have to be more careful, Master Richard."

Dick grunted. 

"You'll also have to be patient." Alfred paused, throwing the stitch needle back into its kit. "With the healing process, that is. Wounds like this take care and understanding to be healed properly."

Dick blew out a breath between his teeth, head falling back on his shoulders. 

Bruce was probably typing up his report. He probably wouldn't care if Dick disappeared upstairs. 

"I know Alfred," he said, with as much levity as he could. "This isn't my first rodeo."

Alfred looked at Dick down his nose. The look kind of made Dick want to cry. It could be the anesthetic that Alfred gave him.

Alfred sighed, too long to be proper. 

"Unfortunately not, Master Dick."

"It's such a shame that you've injured yourself! At your Dad's gala a couple of months ago you were the life of the party! I know my Alyssa was chomping at the bit to get herself a dance with you."

The woman in front of him-the one he was vaguely acquainted with after running in each other's circles for so long-always grated on Dick's nerves. The fact that she had her hand creeping up Bruce's arm and called Bruce Dick's Dad, had an unwarranted dislike curling up in his chest.

Dick smiled and Bruce laughed in his stupid Brucie laugh and Dick was very tired, all of a sudden. "You know-the hazard of being a gymnast. I'm sure I'd love a dance with your daughter as well."

The woman flung her hair behind her bare shoulder. Dick grit his teeth through his showcase smile. 

"If she were here I'd introduce you." She leaned into Bruce's space, resting her breast against his side. "Wouldn't that be something Brucie? If our children started dating?"

The dislike uncurled and flexed its claws into Dick's inside until Dicks was ten seconds away from yelling at Bruce and asking him if he was going to stay Brucie forever and avoid an apology to the best he could. 

Dick let his smile grow a touch wider and fluttered his eyes closed for just a second of grounding darkness and breathed like Bruce had taught him. Fucking Bruce.

Bruce said something vapid and inane and Dick waited for the perfect moment to excuse himself. Excused himself to go find a room to text his friends and let the happy couple rot together. 

Once Brucie and the woman were suitably taken with each other he walked out of the ballroom and upstairs into the manor with an easy confidence that had no one stopping him. He picked a room lined with bookshelves and a sterile feel, figuring it would be less likely to be visited by couples trying to get alone. Like Brucie and the woman might be doing.

He dropped his head against the heavy mahogany doors and sucked in a breath so hard he felt his ribs creak. 

Bruce had barely talked to him since he got shot. And to be fair, Dick hadn't talked to him, but Dick was the teenager damn it! Bruce might have had the emotional maturity of a fourth grader, but he was a fucking adult. Dick's... guardian, or whatever.

And he might have just missed Bruce. Missed him so much that his stomach collapsed in on itself at the odd moment where he had to remind himself how to breathe. Because he was being left again and-

Stupid. 

He just had to breathe like Bruce taught him; in for four seconds, hold for four, out for four, hold for four. 

Just like Bruce used to teach him because everything with Bruce was a 'used to'. 

Dick didn't know where he went wrong. One moment Bruce had come alive while Dick was trailing after him, acting like a real person and actually living a life, and the next he was the Bruce Wayne Dick met for the first time as a child. Cold and uncomfortable and unsure how to handle a grieving child. 

Dick startled when the door opened with enough forced to push him further into the room, and he felt his stomach drop even before he turned around. Bruce was there. Of course Bruce was there. 

At least Brucie was wiped from his face, even if he was staring down Dick like he was unsure of something which he wasn't, because he was Batman, but still, looking at Dick like that. Bruce was always a little uncertain when it came to Dick, not Robin. 

Dick stepped away from the door to let Bruce in, and then on impulse crossed the room and sat himself on the expensive looking desk taking up half the room, and the only furniture besides the chair behind it in the room. 

His legs swung freely and he regretted his choice. He felt like a child. 

Bruce, on his part, closed the door behind him and said nothing. He didn't look at Dick, pretending he wandered into the library on his own, and stood in front of the bookshelves to the left of the desk. Dick didn't say anything. Neither did Bruce. He just pursued the spines of the books in front of him that looked like they had never actually been opened. 

Dick wanted to scream. He wanted to scream and get in Bruce's face and grab him by the labels and pull him down to Dick's level and-and do anything, to get Bruce's attention. 

Dick made a sound and fell backwards on the desk, cool, lacquered surface against the small of his back where his suit had rode up. He turned his palms flat against the desk and watched as the desk around them steamed up.

When he turned his head to look at Bruce, Bruce was looking at him, face unreadable and a book unopened in hand. 

The skin of Dick's face felt tired.

He smiled at Bruce anyways, not sure if it was facetious or not, throwing out a line and uncaring of what it said. Eyebrows pulling low, Bruce looked down at the book in his hands. He stepped up to the desk, sitting himself in the giant leather chair behind it and placed the book down next to Dick's head. 

"Do you remember?" Bruce asked. 

Dick wanted to scream again. Remember what? Remember Bruce angry at Dick for saving a life because he didn't follow orders, because he thought freely and wasn't the perfect accessory to crime fighting he might have been at thirteen?

He kept the smile on his face. 

"Remember what B?"

The muscles of Bruce's throat worked. Dick desperately wanted to know whatever Bruce was swallowing.

Bruce closed the book and reached across Dick's body to set the book in his hand by Dick's head. Dick turned, following the heat before he could think better. 

"The book," Bruce said. "When you first came to the manor you'd have me read different stories to you when you weren't feeling well."

Dick lifted himself up, back peeling off the lacquered wood with a wet sound, and pulled up enough to face Bruce, crossing his legs underneath himself. The owner of the desk would probably have a fit over Dick's shoes resting on the dark mahogany.

He pulled the book into his lap, gentle with the cover of soft, clean leather with gentle sloping words on its front. 

"Ah." Dick thumbed at the title, not daring to look up at Bruce. "'The Jungle Book.' I remember. You always... you always told me I reminded you of Mowgli." Dick scoffed and it sounded suspiciously wet. "Which was like, super racist and classist or whatever now that I think about it."

Bruce laughed so softly that Dick flinched. 

"No. No Dick. The jungle wasn't your circus. Haley's was the family you were separated from and me and Alfred... the jungle was my world I-that I stole you away into." 

Dick looked up, lump in his throat, which was stupid, and met Bruce's gaze. It was all twisted up. Sad and guilty and just as human as Dick had always known him to be.

And he was looking at Dick. Looking at Dick like Dick was something-someone, that he cared very much for. 

Dick didn't think. He just scooted awkwardly across the desk until he could slide off of it, and straight into Bruce's lap. He wound is arms around the back of Bruce's neck, arms shaking, which was stupid too. 

Bruce went stiff, pressed against the back of the chair like he was trying to get away, but Dick buried his face into Bruce's throat, all aftershave that smells like its not even there and waited, and finally, finally, Bruce gently wrapped his arms around Dick as well. 

Dick was vaguely aware of how incriminating it would look if someone were to walk in right now, what with Dick straddling Bruce's lap and one of Bruce's hands tangled in Dick's hair at the back of his head and the other digging into the skin at the small of his back. 

But Dick didn't care. 

It was them, after all. 

The only thing Dick cared about was the heartbeat on the right side of his ribcage, beating just off rhythm with his own right next to it. 

When Bruce's grip went from bruising to gently combing through his hair, Dick leaned back to look into his face. He could feel Bruce breathing on him. Could smell the martini he had been nursing earlier. Dick glanced down the mouth that was drinking the martini and then dragged his gaze back up to Bruce's eyes. Bruce's nostrils flared. 

Dick didn't want to think about it, so he headbutted Bruce's forehead gently and eased back onto the desk.

"You're Baloo. Just as fat too."

Bruce breathed through his nose, mouth curling up. 

"I'm serious B. All that booze, it make you fat. If you're not careful you'll get a big ole gut that I'll be able to curl up and take naps on."

"What would you know about booze, Dick?"

"That after long nights with Selina you come home reeking like it. And that it make socialites more likely to flirt with a teenaged boy."

"Who's flirting with you?"

Bruce's face was so serious that Dick had to press his lips together to keep from laughing. He had no doubt Bruce would rush to ruin anybody he thought acted untoward to him. Dick didn't mind the flirting. He like the flirting. 

Good practice for Babs. Good practice for... anybody else.

He reached over to straighten out Bruce's bow tie, eyes creased with humor. 

"We're," Dick cleared his throat. "We're good, right B?"

Bruce was so quiet that Dick feared he was going to say no. Slap away Dick's hands that he didn't even realize he had left on Bruce's chest and bench him from Robin duties and tell him his stay at the manor had ended. 

Instead Bruce curled his hand around the hand on his chest and looked up at Dick. 

"We're okay."


	3. I've gotta give it to you, You give me problems

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There are other people in both Dick and Bruce's lives now. Neither knows how to feel about that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Chapter includes DV and/or child abuse (nothing to graphic.) Please, please, don't read if it will trigger or upset you. 
> 
> Also sorry for the late update. It was both surprisingly difficult and cathartic to talk about the first occurrence of DV. Thank you for sticking with this story, and I really appreciate all the kudos and comments, considering how personal the nature of this story is for me. 
> 
> Also, just to be clear, the moment when Dick examines his reflection and calls himself 'the wrong-side of tan' is not the author being predijuice, but is supposed to reflect feelings Dick has internalized about himself.

Selina had stayed the night. 

She had stayed the night.

She was there at breakfast in one of Bruce’s dress shirts hanging off her frame and makeup smudged beneath her eyes and somehow still stunning. 

Dick shifted his weight and the original flooring that Alfred had so painstakingly restored creaked under his feet. Selina's head moved minutely, but she didn't raise her head. Bruce had that look he got sometimes when he had drank too much-washed out and pretending he was feeling fine, because if he was feeling fine, however much he drank the night before was also fine. 

So, Selina knew Dick was there, but she was tactful enough to give Dick the out if he wanted it. Which he didn't. The situation was objectively very funny. Very domestic in the way that the three of them decidedly were not. 

The floor creaked again. 

Stupid Alfred and his stupid campaign to preserve the old parts of the mansion. Growing up, Dick was used to the smell of sawdust and varnish and whole rooms closed off and covered with sheets. Bruce liked it, wanted to preserve his parent’s memory like they were trapped in the shitty furniture, as absurd as it was, but he never admitted it.

It was weird. 

Dick knew Bruce cared about Selina. But-

But Bruce had her spend the night. There, in the manor. In the place that Bruce and Dick spent a thousand quiet evenings and ate together and where Dick used to crawl into Bruce’s bed. The bed he had undoubtedly fucked Selina in the night before. 

Dick should walk in and smile teasingly at the two of them and butter his toast and be down right pleasant. Because when was Dick not?

He walked into the kitchen, like his legs didn’t feel too bare in his shorts and the silence he was breaking didn’t exclude him. 

Selina lifted up her head, curious, kind, clever, like always. 

“Boy Wonder, how’s it going?”

Dick swallowed down his violent belly. He swallowed and swallowed and the bitter grapefruit or dry toast that wasn’t even in his mouth. He smiled. Because he was Dick Grayson, and Dick Grayson smiled. 

“Hey,” Dick said, smirking. “Fancy meeting you here.”

Bruce’s shoulders relaxed, but he still didn't look up from his plate, and Selina said something vaguely flirty because it was Selina, and she was witty and pretty and sexy and so, so, great. Perfect for Bruce, really. 

So, the conversation went forward, and Dick wasn’t exactly sure what he and Selina said but they were all things that didn’t matter, and Bruce remained hunched over his plate, choking down each mouthful as if he wasn’t on the precipice of hangover that Dick has seen a hundred times. 

Dick wondered what Selina thought of it. 

The spread that Alfred had obviously put more effort into then normal felt like paper in his mouth, but while Bruce was pale and his hand was shaking around his fork with withdrawal, Selina was smooth and funny and Dick couldn’t help but to laugh at her quips, charmed despite himself. 

Dick excused himself as soon as he had finished, mentioning some non-existent event with the Titans. Selina’s mouth twitched downwards when Dick went to go grab his coat, but Bruce stayed hunched over his plate, mouth a tight line as he stared down his over easy eggs. Which seemed like the worst possible thing for a rolling belly.

Dick called up his favorite driver. He waited out by the glided but largely ignored gates out in front of the manor. Not for the first time, Dick wondered just how rich Bruce really was. He didn't say, just assured he was philanthropic and put his money to good use. 

The car finally pulled up, crunching gravel, with Dick’s favorite driver rolling down his window and grinning at Dick like Dick might even be one of his own three kids, 

Ray was from the sandwich generation: a dad with dementia he was caring for and teenage kids turning his hair gray. Dick liked how he acted. 

Like Dick was a kid that he could ask about his day and make bad jokes at and actually seemed interested when Dick talked about his high school and his friends. 

Ray tried to make conversation, but Dick felt lethargic, and lonely, and wanted to hear from his friends. He answered Ray’s questions cordially but focused on his phone. The stupid phone that Bruce had customized from Wayne Industries for him. For the first time he wondered what add-ons Bruce had added besides the privacy and direct message system between the two of them. 

He sent a text to Wally and Donna each, asking what they were doing. There was no answer but Dick didn’t say anything and Ray stayed course to the Tower. It’s not like Dick had anywhere else to go.

Besides, for whatever reason, he was too busy thinking about how Selina looked in Bruce’s clothes, and how the two of them looked sitting together doing something as domestic as eating breakfast.

And how Dick didn’t fit with them. 

Not when they flirted in the field, or when Bruce left late at night with Selina on his arm or when they did whatever they did underneath the sheets.

Dick threw himself out of the car and into the base level floor, barely able to mutter the goodbye that Ray actually deserved, and took deep breaths, head tilted back on the mirror of the elevator until the doors opened. He took a second before walking into the lounge area, and blinked when he recognized the figure there, staring out of the window blankly. 

“Speedy. What’re you doing here?”

Roy looked over his shoulder, in street clothes and seeming strangely vulnerable.

He looked tired. 

The skin around his eyes was darker and loose.

“Ah, fuck,” Roy said, scrubbing his face. “It’s you.”

Dick couldn’t help the smirk on his face. He wandered further into the room. “Sorry to disappoint,” he joked. Speedy ran his hand down his face again, and Dick’s tummy felt tight and uncomfortable.

“I just- I just… you look like shit,” Roy spit, bitter on his tongue, like always these days. 

“Yeah, well I’m not the only one.” Dick looked at Roy and Roy looked at him, tired, resigned, hungry, in a way that had Dick’s blood picking up again. He settled himself next to Roy, leaving too small a space between them.

“I didn’t mean to be here.”

Dick hummed. He could feel Roy’s gaze on the side of his face. It was quiet between them for a good long time in which Dick took in the smell of aftershave that wasn’t Bruce’s and felt himself relax in response. He wondered when the hell Roy started using aftershave. He wondered if he was supposed to start using aftershave too. 

The thing was… Roy was troubled, but he was good. Handsome, kind, and smart. Dick had always had fun with him, even taking into consideration all the times they were at each other’s throats. And if Roy was doing something, then maybe Dick should be doing it too. Maybe the fact that he wasn’t showed the fact that Dick was growing up too slowly. 

Roy shifted uneasily on the couch. 

“Rob, are you… what’re you doing here? Is everything okay?”

Dick had to fight the impulse to lean into Roy’s space. To annoy him. 

Now that they were older Roy’s voice was evening out into something deeper. Something warmer that suited him. Which was just another thing to worry about. Dick’s voice was still a little soft, a little jarring. 

Everyone was growing up and leaving him behind and Dick was just the kid left to play catch up. 

“I’m fine asshole.” Dick flicked his eyes to Roy and saw the insult had Roy clenching his jaw and something in Dick’s throat that lodged there during breakfast cleared a little bit. Interactions with Roy were always so easy, so simple. 

They sat there for a while, on the garish ottoman that Garth had picked out, facing the shore with shoulders almost touching when they would both inhale at the same time. It was easy to match Roy’s rhythm. It was good just to exist there with him. 

But good got boring fast, and Dick sat up, skipping into Roy’s line of sight. “Let’s spar,” Dick said, not asking. He liked how Roy’s eyes fell to his legs-still mostly bare, in the sleep shorts from that morning, and then back up to the left of Dick’s face, shoulder’s a little tense. 

“No. I’m not in the mood.”

“You’re always in the mood.”

Roy’s face turned pink behind his freckles and he turned his face up, scowling at Dick. Dick liked that when Roy was sitting; then he had to look up at Dick. 

Dick just smiled, nice and slow and gentle like Bruce had done for him before, and then faltered when Roy’s face flushed even further. His stomach went warm and gooey and he was embarrassed for himself. He shook himself out of it. 

“Come on Speedy,” Dick cajoled. “I have excess energy to burn off.”

“You always do. Bossy little shit.”

“Is that a yes?”

Roy looked up at the celling, sighing in a way that had to be exaggerated, but made Dick think back to Bruce when his patience was running thin. It made his stomach fall, thinking he pushed too far, but Roy just pushed himself off the ottoman with a grunt and headed towards the elevator. Dick felt like fucking skipping, which was so, so stupid. 

So, what? Somebody didn’t reject him. No reason to get excited. People were allowed to like Dick. Dick was probably very likeable, if what Babs said was to be believed. (Even if she insisted that Dick was too young for her.) 

The ride down the elevator was silent, Dick all but gnawing on his tongue to stop himself from needling Roy, knowing he was liable to get embarrassed and flounce off at the littlest of offences. Dick pushed up onto the soles of his feet to free a little of his excitement, but Roy’s eyes just fell down to his legs in the mirror when he did it. Dick felt another thrill go through him.

He wasn’t usually like that. He wasn’t. But today Roy seemed different and Dick felt different and it just seemed right that they’d both ended up at the Tower together today. Their sparring would probably be amazing.

Dick knew his face was too close to Speedy’s. But Roy was looking at his mouth when he wet it and his breath was warm and damp on Dick’s face. 

He kissed Roy. And Roy pushed him off, bolting upright. He wiped his mouth and Dick tried not to feel insulted. He pushed himself up, stomach dropped all the way to his toes. 

“What the fuck, Rob?”

“What do you want me to say Roy? I could feel you up against my ass and you were looking at me like that and… I know I didn’t misread this.”

Roy’s face flit between expressions, settling on frantic when Dick raised his chin and stepped closer to Roy. His pupils stayed fat and black. 

“Speedy…” Dick raised a hand out between them, wavering before he curled it into Roy’s shirt. “Roy. Tell me I’m wrong.”

Roy’s heart was speeding underneath Dick’s fist.

“I… I don’t know.”

Dick remembered a recent gala, hand on Bruce’s chest and looking up at him coyly. He smoothed his hand out on Roy’s chest and looked at Roy through his eyelashes, pushing up onto his toes. 

“I can work with that.”

When he kissed Roy he kissed him back, lips chapped and raw and mean and hungry. It was a lot like Roy. 

Roy’s hand flitted around Dick’s waist like it was a perch too small to land and Dick dug a hand into Roy’s hair, angry for reasons he wasn’t sure of. He pulled Roy down so hard their teeth clacked painfully and Roy to hissed at him. Dick just pulled him back down, both hands at the nape of his neck.

He wasn’t sure what he was doing. He traded a few ‘practice kisses’ with Wally and Donna, but it was nothing like this. Insects hatching inside his stomach and mouth working frantically against Roy’s in a way that was foreign, and instinctual and something enough to force all the clutter out of Dick’s head. Trying to chase down what felt the best, made him feel the closest, made his blood thrum where he was holding Roy.

He wasn’t aware of backing Roy into the wall, but suddenly he was there, still up on his toes. 

Dick, feeling possessed, thrust his hand down Roy's pants.

Roy had his eyes squeezed shut, head tilted against the wall. “Batman is going to kill me,” he groaned. Dick laughed.

“Weird thing to say when my hands down your pants.”

“Dick, you really are the most annoying little-“ Roy yelped as Dick squeezed just a little bit to hard. Dick fluttered his eyes up at Roy. He really hated that Roy was taller than him. 

“What were you saying dear?”

Roy smirked back at Dick, neck still bared and still hard beneath Dick’s palm. 

“Nothing, honey.”

The endearment gave Dick some kind of thrill-not down in the shorts type of thrill, but somewhere lonely and just starting to be fully realized. Having Roy here with him, made it better. Made it fly from Dick’s mind when he started stroking Roy, palm more tacky that slick, and Roy groaned anyways. 

He liked that Roy liked him. He liked it a lot.

And he liked the way Roy’s eyes flit from where Dick’s hand was working in Roy’s pants to Dick’s face and then somewhere over his shoulder, face embarrassed but still turned on. Feeling good. 

Because of Dick.

Because he liked Dick.

They did get along all the time and might not know everything about each other and Dick may not feel the perfect type of happy that comes from being really known and being loved for what is known, but he felt good. Excited, blood buzzing beneath his skin and a belly so warm that it was dropping embers. But also-a boy. A boy that liked the way his legs looked in shorts and whose laugh always made Dick smile and who’s freckles Dick thought were really cute. 

Someone that was easy, that shared so much with Dick but that was goofy and scathing and a distinct person that Dick had a connection with. 

Something that was easy. A want and then an answer. Feelings that the body made and the body acted on and then the mind caught up to. 

It was good. It was so good.

Watching Roy twitch into the ring of his hand and breathing hard and watching a bed of sweat fall down the side of Roy’s face-it made Dick hard in his pants. It also… made him wet, in his pants, which he thought was only possible when he came. 

Dick masturbated, sure, but he was quick. Efficient and chasing his pleasure, impatient for it, and then being done. 

But this was different. 

A long burn that Dick never wanted out of his veins. He wanted to see where else he could take these feelings that he thought were static and flat and was quickly realizing were thick and abundant and begging to be explored. 

Roy had his eyes squeezed shut and his mouth open and Dick wasn’t sure why, but he leaned forward to kiss him on the side of his mouth. 

Roy’s hips stuttered forward a few more times and then Dick felt Roy’s cock twitch and come, making the inside of Roy’s pants even hotter and wetter than they already were. Roy groaned deeply, resting against the wall for awhile, before he opened his eyes, looking wet, and stuck his own hand down Dick's pants. 

Bruce had left for work in a bad mood. When Dick came back from the cave, showered and still smiling from the offhand compliment Roy had paid him, Bruce had been in an even worse mood. Unfortunately for Dick, patrol wasn’t for hours and Bruce, for whatever reason, had decided to eat dinner with Dick. 

Or to not eat. 

He just kind of glared at his food while Dick shoveled his own into his mouth as quickly as possible, wanting to needle Bruce into a good mood but knowing that it would probably be better to go hide out in his room and maybe catch a few hours of sleep. Afterall, he was tired from the Titan’s drug bust they finished up over the weekend, and Bruce was being the way Bruce sometimes was, in the way Batman almost always was. 

Dick startled so badly Bruce cleared his throat he almost dropped his fork. 

“How was your team?” He asked, no eye contact, fork held tightly in his hand. 

“Good.”

Bruce nodded. “And Wally?”

“Good.” Dick rubbed at his chest. His last bite got caught on the way down That’s what he got for eating too quickly.

“Speedy?”

Dick hesitated and Bruce probably noticed. 

“Good also.”

“As well,” Bruce corrected. Dick narrowed his eyes at Bruce. Bruce was staring at his plate, face slack and eyes unfocused.

And Dick-Dick was so tired of pretense. He was so tired of talking and not saying anything and not knowing what to say to Bruce to keep him happy. Maybe he was selfish. Maybe Bruce was. Maybe Dick should have never tried to get close again because Bruce obviously didn’t want it, and was punishing Dick for making him crack himself open and let himself feel things again.

“How about you Bruce? How was your day?” Resting his chin in his hand was probably too much. Dick did it anyways. “Met with the board I believe. And Lucious-how is Lucious doing?” Dick let his eyes go wide. “How’s Selina doing?”

“I wouldn’t know.”

Dick slouched further into his hand, chest coming close to the table. He was sure he looked like a fucking idiot, but Bruce wasn’t looking at him anyways. He batted his eyelashes and sighed. 

“Golly, Bruce! Trouble in paradise already?”

Bruce’s face went as foul and dark as Dick had ever seen it. And Dick probably deserved it. Dick probably usually deserved it.

He was acting like a child, and Bruce wasn’t Dick’s world anymore and he couldn’t expect to be Bruce’s either, but Dick couldn’t help it. 

“What is it? Sex not what it used to be? The thrill of bedding someone smarter and sexier and dirtier than you wear off?”

“Dick,” Bruce growled, finally lifting his eyes. Dick straightened his spine without thinking. 

“Bat,” Dick said, curling the word in his mouth like he had heard Selina do so many times before. Bruce’s eyes went black. 

“What the fuck do you want me to say Dick? That’s she’s the same criminal that she’s always been, pussy tight as always? That the sex was good enough that it made me forget not to invite her back to the manor just because you’re so… so fucking sensitive!?”

Dick jerked out of the chair, his belly hitting low against the table, knocking the wind out of him. 

“You can’t talk to me that way.”

Bruce pushed off his own chair, stepping close so that he was looking down at Dick, breath hot on his face. Dick-Dick wasn’t going to fucking step back, because why should he?

“Can’t I?” Bruce said, lip curled and mocking. “You’re adamant that I treat you as an equal out in the field! As a fucking partner, and as an adult even though you’re my goddamn ward, and a goddamn child!” 

“We are equals! And I’m more than your ward! I’m your fucking friend. I’ve always been your friend.”

Bruce reached out a hand and tangled a fist into Dick’s hair until Dick yelped, crying out as Bruce tightened his grip, forcing his head down. Dick was too shocked to even raise his head.

“You’ve been a nuisance to take care of.”

Bruce had never spoken to Dick like that. Dick thought he was going to be sick across Bruce’s stupid polished shoes the hand in his hair was making him look at. If it was anybody else, Dick would be fighting back; would punch Bruce across the jaw and kick him back square in the chest. 

“A pest to feed and pray stays away,” Bruce continued. “You’re a self-intitled brat and you’re throwing a fit because-”

Dick growled at Bruce, straining to push him back with two little palms to the erratic rise and fall of Bruce’s chest. The reminder of how slight he still was compared to Bruce made his throat close with something he refused to recognize as fear. 

“I’m the self-entitled brat!? If I’m the self-entitled brat, you’re a sheltered, obsessive child that will never grow up!”

Bruce took a hold of one of Dick’s wrists and yanked it away, enough force in the grip to have Dick’s heart cracking faster against his ribs. 

But he wasn’t the type. The type to see Batman- or Bruce, as it was, as threatening and snarling and violent. He’d never been scared of Bruce. 

“You are seconds away from me losing my cool,” Bruce said, face ruddy and close and spitting onto Dick’s own. “I suggest you shut your mouth and crawl up to the room that I gave you. Like I gave you everything, because in case you forgot, I fucking own you.”

Dick felt hot, in a way that hurt from his head to his toes, violent and angry and just wanting someone to take it all away. But nobody would- it was only him and Bruce, and Bruce hadn’t held him softly since he was a child, never took Dick’s feelings and smoothed them out and gave Dick a place to calm down. 

So, Dick did what he had left to do: he lifted his chin, face close enough to Bruce’s own that he was forced to think about what it would be like to kiss Bruce like he had kissed Speedy the other week.

“I suggest that you get the fuck out of my space! I suggest-“Dick moved even closer to Bruce’s face, lip curled and teeth bared, feeling like an animal- “You finally leave all your childish fantasies behind and grow the fuck up! Your parent are dead! Get the fuck over-”

Dick didn’t see the hand coming. He didn’t see Bruce cock his fist back or wind up or anything, to busy looking at the ugly on Bruce’s face. 

He just felt it, burning but completely sensationless, whipping his face to snap to the other side.

There was no noise and no feeling until everything slowly started sapping back. Dick’s face seared with pain, cresting and breaking and then constant. Dick’s face was still turned, and finally, the thick weave of the Persian rug below them and the sound of both their breathing came back, broken and ragged. He was sure who’s was who’s. 

Dick lifted his hand to his face before he could think better of it. It felt warm to the touch, and for some reason that helped Dick to look at Bruce. 

Bruce was looking at his own hand, still curled into a fist, arm still crossed across his body. His face was slack. 

Dick must have made a noise, because Bruce finally met his eyes, pupils blown and far away. Bruce tried to reach his spare hand out to Dick, and Dick flinched away. Bruce’s face broke.

Dick first instinct was to reach out a comfort Bruce. And then, and then, he realized the over-hot skin of his face was from Bruce’s still curled fist and he couldn’t gain control of his body if tried.

Dick’s body knew better than him. Maybe from all the years as Robin. 

Whatever it was, his body knew to send blood to all his muscles (taking the blood from his stomach and leaving him sick,) and urge Dick to back out of the dining room, and his body knew to drop lead weight that Dick was all too familiar with low in his belly, making him sweat and shake. 

Never mind the hurt that Bruce was bleeding onto the carpet between them. 

“Dick…”

Dick turned and ran, ran to his room (that Bruce gave him) and slammed the door shut, chest heaving. He locked the door, for the first time ever, and then went into the connected bathroom suite, not wanting but really wanting to look at his burning face. 

It looked like Dick’s face. Mouth too big, wrong side of tan skin, blue eyes, dark eyelashes next to a scar at the corner of his right eye.

It was him. It was him except the red, angry skin at his jaw and left cheek and creeping up even toward his temples. Proof that… proof that Bruce had hit him. 

He breathed deep, hands bared down on either side of the mirror. He couldn’t feel them. He still wasn’t even sure it was him looking back in the mirror. 

He tried to imagine Bruce was just another baddy that got a lucky break but that just made his breathing shallower. 

His eyes were black. 

Dick remembered one time that his mom and dad had fought worse than their usually passive aggressive grumbles and how his dad tried to gather himself over his mother in their cramped little trailer kitchen. He remembered the way that his mom pinched her lips, doing a weird little quirk upwards, and how his dad collapsed forward, arms covering her shoulders and tucking his chin on her head, both of them snorting out with laughter. 

His parents laughed so hard they cried a little bit and then Dick cried a little bit, and they all ate ice cream around the kitchen table and his parents kissed each other gently before bed. 

Dick remembered when his mom was furious with him for getting lost in a nearby city after curfew with a new friend. He remembered how she screamed and tugged him home. When they were home and the screen door shuttered closed, and it was just him and his mom in their trailer dimly humming from the shitty generator they had that tour, his mother’s face had crumpled, and she dropped to her knees, crying into his shoulder. She was furious, but made sure he knew it was because they were worried because they loved him. Loved him so very much. 

Dick let go of the bathroom sink, feeling-feeling weird. He looked around, stepping further into his on suite and looked around, spying the fluffy shower mat that Alfred hated because of the constant need for laundering, and slid over and sat on it. 

The shower wall was so fucking white. ‘Cause Alfred made it that way. Everything was so sterile at the stupid fucking manor.

The pipes groaned quietly, because Dick’s room was one of the few places Bruce allowed to not be refurbished if he didn’t want it to be. 

Dick dropped his head. 

He said stuff he shouldn’t have said. He pushed Bruce. Always seemed to. 

When Dick first came to Bruce, Bruce was cold and distant and unable to believe good feelings could ever outweigh the bad ones. He still did, to an extent, but Bruce at least started to become alive again, like he was in some type of stasis that he needed somebody to knock him out of and into real life. It had taken ages to stop Bruce from spooling himself back in as Dick got older, and now Dick had fucked it all back up. 

Bruce had punched him. 

Not especially hard, but he still did it. 

Dick wasn’t sure what that meant for them. He wasn’t sure what it meant for how Bruce felt about Dick.

And Dick, Dick probably shouldn’t feel any of the ways he was at the moment. But who the fuck said emotions made sense in moments like that?

But they’d go away. Emotions came and they went, and new ones took their place. Dick had learned that the hard way.

“What’re you doing for your birthday Rob?” 

Donna had her legs crossed where they hung off the fire escape. She looked very young for once, like she could pop bubblegum at Dick and throw her ponytail over her shoulder.

It made Dick feel young right back. He slung his arm over her shoulder, which she took with only a tiny nose wrinkle, and swung his legs right along with hers.

“With you guys or B?”

Dick hadn’t talked to Bruce in a week. Hadn’t seen hide nor tail of Bruce. He just got a muffin basket on his bed, which was just a weird thing to give a teenager, let a lone a teenager you had known for years and had guardianship of. There were also various other odd gifts on his bed throughout the past two weeks.

Thinking about Bruce didn’t feel good. He couldn’t explain it-he just felt it in his belly and his skin and it wasn’t, it wasn’t good right now. 

It might have almost, almost been something closer to shame and guilt then he would ever want to admit. Because that was fucking stupid. 

Dick did provoke Bruce, but he wasn’t the one that left a bruise on his face along with a stiff, painful jaw.

Dick blinked under his mask hard, city smog-pink sunset coming back into focus. He relaxed his shoulders, feeling the heat that Donna somehow still had, even with her bare arms. Talking to Donna there with the evening winding down was as about as close as Dick could get to home these days. 

Donna glanced at him out of the corner of her eyes and Dick made sure to keep his face easy and pleasant. Because 

“Us obviously,” Donna snarked, in a tone a voice she ever only used with Dick-high and bratty. “I am sure you and you-know-how will do some type of inane public party and then he will give you something that costs an inane amount of money and then ignore you exist outside of Robin, just like usual.”

Dick laughed, truly amused, and was reminded for what felt like the thousandth time how much he liked Donna. He loved Wally and Roy was… well, Roy, but Donna felt like shedding ten different layers he didn’t know he was wearing. He grinned at her, and she grinned back, light catching on her cheekbones and incredibly stunning and-

And Dick remembered how much Roy liked Donna in a different way and his stomach sank. 

He shook the thought away-no beautiful untouchable Donna, but the Donna that worked harder than anybody he knew to be recognized for her own skill and ability. The one he loved and that loved him back. He thought, at least. 

“Aww, I didn’t know you guys wanted to celebrate my birthday! I mean the JLA doesn’t do that type of stuff for each other…”

Donna shrugged Dick off her shoulder, wrinkling her nose again at the smell from his under armor and straightening her spine like royalty. So embarrassed that Dick had to purse his lips to keep from laughing. He bumped her elbow with his fondly. 

“Kid Flash suggested it, and Speedy seconded it. I was neutral.”

Dick’s cheeks went hot, which was stupid.

“Admit it, I bet you were the one who was right there cheering my name and booking party planners.” Donna snorted, and her cheeks went the softest shade pinker. 

“You’re delusional. We were thinking pizza and that cheesy, colonizing, hyper-masculine movie you like so much. With the handsome actor. Maybe visit the mall if we want dessert.”

Dick smiled so hard his chest hurt. He loved Donna for knowing simple things that he loved and that simple pleasures made him feel like he was right back at home in a tiny trailer with people that loved him for whatever he’d turn out to be. 

Donna was kind of an awesome person. 

Dick turned his head so it was rested on her bare shoulder. “That sounds perfect.” Donna leaned her side into Dicks for just a moment, her loud colors clashing with his, but melting into his body heat so smoothly he could imagine his thoughts seeping into her.

She moved away sooner than Dick wanted, but not sooner than Dick anticipated. 

Having the Titans made Dick realize how much he missed skin-ship. His parents were gymnast, and then acrobats. They were tactile by nature and trade and definitely as parents. Dick couldn’t forget the feeling of his parents leaving sloppy kisses on his temples and cuddling him around the bonfires if he tried. They were such good parents. 

And Bruce-Bruce had initially let Dick hang all over him and his massive shoulders and thighs and everything else, and Bruce just silently bared it even if he never touched Dick back, not really. It wasn’t much, but it was something until Bruce silently decided that Dick couldn’t touch him anymore.

“Indiana Jones is a classic, by the way. It was Batman’s dad’s favorite.”

Donna looked at him before she gasped, hand flying to her chest, quivering like a movie from the fifties. Dick smiled despite himself at seeing her act her age. They always did when they were together. 

“Batman has a dad!? I was under the impression that he just sprang out of the shadows and came alive one day.”

Dick turned to Donna, face grave. “You mean like you?”

Donna bristled and Dick had to tamp down the bubbles in his chest. 

“I did not come from the shadows. I-”

“Robin, Wonder-girl. Back up on the east pier. An unregistered boat is docking according the crypted timeline.”

They looked at the communicator to the left of Rob, eyes blank. When they looked back at each other soft Donna was walled back up, and Rob picked up the communicator and held it to his mouth, everything spooling back in and locking down. 

“On it,” he said. “ETA in ten.”

Dick stood up on the warped metal of the fire escape, going onto his tip toes and stretching. Donna got up with much more grumbling considering she had taken a hard hit earlier in the day with some tech they expected was alien, because she was afraid of Rob getting hit. 

He readied his grapple and swung his cape over one shoulder but before he could swing away a deceptively delicate hand wrapped itself around his wrist. Her skin on his felt soft and comforting and kind. “Before you go,” she said. “I just. I just- we can talk, if you need it.”

Dick’s smiled and he wondered how the hell he was going to make it between buildings with his guts spilling out at his feet.

“Well technically, we don’t have the time to talk. Let’s head out.” 

Donna looked at him in the stupid superior way she sometimes had, like she knew better than Dick, like she pitied Dick and Dick felt his smiled melt on the corners of his mouth. Damn Donna. 

He swung away just fine, for the record. 

While Dick entered his report, Bruce-not even Batman: he’d taken off the cowl as soon as they’d gotten in-was standing behind him or pacing behind him or scowling up at the computer over Dick’s shoulder. Dick’s toes and the pads of his feet were placed firmly on the ground, claves clenching each time Bruce swooped behind him and rested a hand on the back of his chair. 

On what felt like the twentieth pass behind Dick, he stared up at the screen and let the brightness of the monitor numb away all the fine details around him. 

The bruise on his face was all but gone, just light brown and yellow fading in splotches shaped like four very defined circles where he had been hit the hardest. His bruise was all but gone, and his jaw didn’t click, but he still hadn’t spoken to Bruce outside of what was necessary for patrol, and with two layers of pretense between them. 

Dick’s body didn’t want to turn when he made it, Bruce Wayne’s body jerking still, head snapping to Dick’s face. Dick could feel Bruce’s eyes on him like Clark turned his lasers onto the high parts of his nose and cheeks. 

Dick raised his head, looking the top of Bruce’s sweat matted hair. He didn’t speak.

Some stalactite dripped in the distance and the cave let in a gentle gust of wind, and the computers whirred quietly. 

Dick would not be the first to fucking speak. Bruce owed him at least that much. 

Bruce’s breathing became audible, became fast and uneven, and that was the first sign something was wrong. Dick’s own breath had to be forced out, slow and long out from his mouth and in from his nose. 

Bruce was the one that taught him breath control in the first place. What the hell was so fucked up between them that Dick was the one that remembered his training and Bruce was left huffing into the cold space between them, like a bull ready to charge?

After a suffocating moment in which Dick looked at Bruce and Bruce kept his body angled away from Dick, but eyes still tracking every change in Dick’s posture or his face. 

“It’s your birthday soon.”

Dick flinched, not expecting Bruce to open with something as asinine as his birthday. It kind of made Dick hate Bruce, just a little bit. 

“Yeah,” Dick croaked. 

The air in the cave seemed to get thinner, which was out of place with all the chilly dampness. Maybe that was the reason for Bruce’s shallow breathing. Maybe not. 

“I… What do you want to do? For your birthday?”

Dick feet went flat on the ground, his heels bouncing from the force of their impact. 

“You mean you haven’t planned anything already?” he asked. Dick finally looked at Bruce and he looked so lost that Dick felt sympathy flood through him cold and sick and burn up just as fast. Fuck Bruce. 

“Should I have?” Bruce asked, deceptively soft and meek. Like he never fucking was. (Unless they were swaying softly and he was looking at Dick with slow eyes. Fuck Bruce for that too.)   
Dick didn’t say anything. Couldn’t think of anything to say because every year he was with Bruce, Bruce had given him an elegant, extravagant birthday celebration and if he didn’t want to do that for Dick this year…

“I wasn’t sure,” Bruce continued. “If you wanted to stay. With me. Long enough to celebrate.”

Dick felt his brows pull down in the way that Alfred assured him would give him wrinkles. “What are you talking about B?”

“I didn’t plan anything because I wasn’t sure- if you- I wasn’t sure if you wanted to leave me. If you wanted to… pursue a different guardian.” Bruce wasn’t looking at Dick anymore and Dick was… his stomach hurt. 

Maybe he should want to find a different guardian. One that didn’t dress up as some stupid animal at night and let Dick follow him into all kinds of danger; a guardian that didn’t prioritize the mission over him and who wasn’t emotionally stunted, but… he couldn’t. 

It wasn’t like Bruce was his guardian anyways. That was more Alfred’s role. Bruce was emotionally as much of a child as Dick was.

It was all moot now anyways. Dick couldn’t imagine a normal life now. He couldn’t imagine not dressing in his bright colors and chasing after a shadow of a man and doing his homework on the ridiculous bright blue shag rug that he and Bruce had picked out together for Bruce’s otherwise preserved office. Dick couldn’t imagine life without Bruce’s wry turn of mouth and piercing eyes and his acerbic wit. 

Bruce was Dick’s home. Had been for almost half of his life. He didn’t want anything else. He wasn’t sure he knew how.

It was all so stupid. Bruce had never hit him before, and there was nothing to suggest that he’d ever hit him again. Dick believed in Bruce.

In his intelligence and bravery and his morality, and his regard for Dick, most of the time. Dick believed Bruce would never hit him again. Bruce had just been pushed back into intimacy too fast and needed time to adjust. 

Dick wet his lips and stood up, ignoring the rubber in his legs. Bruce hunched over when Dick stood in front of him, looking much smaller than Bruce had ever look before. It unnerved Dick but at the same time, some small more vindictive part of Dick that he wished didn’t exist thrilled at seeing Bruce venerable before him, shifting the power onto Dick. 

It didn’t feel weird to look at Bruce anymore while Dick was walking up to him, footsteps loud between them. He stopped close enough to Bruce to feel the heat of him, too pick up the tremble of his right arm. Dick moved slowly to remove his domino mask. Bruce flinched when he met Dick’s bare eyes. 

“Tell me you’re sorry.”

“I- What?” Bruce asked incredulously. 

Dick resisted the urge to swallow the salvia pooling low in his mouth. He just peered up at Bruce. “Say sorry.”

A muscle jumped in Bruce’s jaw, but he didn’t drop eye contact. 

“Dick,” Bruce rumbled, rubbing at his jaw. Dick could smell him, dirty and sweaty from patrol, as close as they were, and something about that made Dick’s heart bounce a little too loudly in his chest.

He smelled like a thousand nights on the street and waking up in the middle of the night, sticky skin stuck to each other and Bruce’s face relaxed and breathing slowly. Like something Dick missed. 

Bruce seemed to be at a loss for words, not that he was ever great with them, but Dick needed an apology. He needed to hear the man that never admitted to being wrong show some willingness to bend to Dick, to open his chest plate in the safety of their own home, just for once. 

“I can’t.”

Dick laughed, surprised and derisive. Bruce’s face crumbled, and Dick’s breath got stuck in his chest. 

Dick frowned, reaching up and settled his hand on the line of Bruce’s jaw, thumb in the little cleft of his chin, pressing until Bruce followed the pressure and tilted his head down, like a confession, like a prayer. 

Dick’s hands went steady.

“B. I love you. I love you, but I need you to say it.”

Bruce flinched back at the words and Dick wondered at the out of tightness flooding his sinuses. 

Dick didn’t do anything wrong. Bruce was family, a family was supposed to love each other no matter how bratty or pushy they could be. Just because Dick was saying it for the first time out loud didn’t make him the bad guy. Didn’t make him a fucking embarrassment.

Bruce’s face went fuzzy and seconds later, Dick felt a hand cup his jaw and most of the left side of his face, where the fading bruising still lived. The mirror of what he did to Bruce to comfort him. Dick didn’t need comforting, however. 

He sighed regardless, leaning into the touch and the big, warm, hand with familiar callouses. When he closed his eyes, he could have sworn that B’s thumb glanced across his bottom lip. 

He blinked, and his eyes cleared, and he saw hope in Bruce’s handsome face.

“We’re family, B. I… love you.”

He knew Bruce would never say it back. He didn’t need him to. The way Bruce swayed further into his space and the way his rough skin was as gentle as he could make it against Dick’s skin, and the candid expression on Bruce’s face said everything. Not quite what Dick wanted, something new instead, but close enough. The look was far more eloquent than Bruce could ever be.

“Say it.” Dick cupped Bruce’s hand on his face. “B, just say it. That’s all I need.”

Bruce opened his mouth, and nothing came out. Closed it again, looking frustrated. The breath Bruce took after had their chests almost touching. 

“Dick I’m…” Bruce closed his eyes, breathing sharp through his nose. “I’m sorry Dick.”

Dick’s vison went blurry all over again, but he just closed them and dropped his head forward onto Bruce’s still heaving chest. The dread in his veins persisted but his chest was light again and they’d be okay. They were Bruce and Dick-Robin and Batman. How could they not be okay?

“I’m sorry too Bruce.”

Bruce crushed him closer to his chest, and Dick knew, knew he was right. It was all okay.


End file.
